KeithBennettPositionPaper

Although I've studied languages and technologies, I haven't studied methodologies of design and testing much, and this is part of what interests me about this conference.

Also, although I've been writing software for a long time, my software design experience is informal, and has usually consisted of providing input in a collaborative environment, including architecture, implementation, and user interface issues. My testing experience has in general been limited to Java's JUnit and Ruby's Test::Unit, but I am lately learning some more complex testing using EasyMock and Apache Wicket's test framework.

I'm interested in finding ways to simplify my work. While much of the testing complexity may be necessary, I'd like to find areas that could be simplified. I've used JRuby, and believe it to be a great tool in the Java environment. I've already put it to use in various scripts, and perhaps it could be used for testing as well.

In any case, I'd like to take advantage of your collective experience and learn how to improve my skills. I'd be happy to do the same for you, if there's anything I can offer you. If you'd like me to talk about any of my blog articles, please let me know. My technical blog is at http://krbtech.wordpress.com/. Here are some subjects I've presented at open space conferences, with links to their respective blog articles or slideshows:

Here's how they apply to simple design and testing, some more farfetched than others: ;)

JRuby and Clojure are languages that can be used for driving the Java Virtual Machine, and may therefore be helpful in unit testing Java apps, and for providing an interactive command line to the JVM.

Improving source code makes us more productive, whether we're creating, maintaining, or testing code.

Knowing the tools of the Unix command line can make many tasks fast and easy, and can free our time for the "real" work.

I am also very interested in human interaction issues, and would love to facilitate a round table on optimizing team community, cooperation, collaboration, and communication.

- Keith Bennett